


She Was the Canary

by CanaryCries



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Gen, Other, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 07:17:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11939067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanaryCries/pseuds/CanaryCries
Summary: Sara Lance was the sister who ruined everything, the dead sister who Laurel never got to say goodbye to. All of a sudden she's alive again, and dead again, and somehow Laurel still hasn't managed to say goodbye.





	She Was the Canary

The first night that we met, she drunkenly fell into my arms, and told me that she wasn’t afraid to die. I guess at the time I didn’t really understand why she had told me. I didn’t know who she was, I definitely didn’t know her backstory, and I think that’s why I fell in love with her.

Sara.  


***

Sara Lance knew she screwed up the second she snuck onto the Gambit. Not only was she sleeping with her sister Laurel’s boyfriend, but she was lying to her entire family in the process. Suddenly it was storming, and suddenly she was falling off the side of the boat into the chill waters of the North China Sea. Somehow she managed to find her way onto a large cargo boat, sitting in one of the small damp cells, listening to the daily doses of dangerous screams and painful whimpers. And somehow, she managed to make her way in and out of the League of Assassins. All without killing herself. 

While Oliver had managed to make it back to Starling within the fifth year anniversary of the Gambit sinking to the bottom of the sea, Sara took another year to return to the place she once called home. Even after Sara had made it back to Starling, she didn’t tell anyone, she went back to the abandoned attic in the Glades and created a new identity. 

The Canary,

***

Whether you choose to call it a new identity or alter ego is completely up to you, but Sara turned into something no one thought possible. She turned the selfish assassin into the selfless vigilante. Sara always seemed to find trouble, whether it be the constant lies, or a group of killers hunting her down to prove their allegiance to Ra’s. But of course, because it was her, she never left with more than a scratch.

Once Oliver actually realized that the woman in black was Sara, he chose his side. He kept Sara’s secret, along with Felicity and Diggle. No one wanted to be the one who accidentally slipped up and had to explain to Laurel or Quentin that she was alive, but refused to see them. Sara thought they would understand, or at least Oliver. He had just came back to Starling a year ago, and he seemed to be getting on fine, but then again, he didn’t hide the fact that he was active and alive a secret for months after he had returned. Oliver didn’t understand, and he made that painfully clear to her. He would tell her to go see Laurel, or go see her father. Ollie would explain to her that she needed to apologize to a lot of people, starting with the one person whose heart she broke into a million different pieces, and scattered them throughout the world. The one person who still hadn’t forgiven her for running onto a boat with her boyfriend, with the love of her life. The one person who still loved her more than anything, even after what Sara had put her through.

Laurel.

***

Dinah Laurel Lance was the perfect child, the perfect older sister. She had the perfect family, the perfect boyfriend, and the perfect life just in general. Unlike Oliver and Tommy Merlyn, she didn’t come from billions; she was just the beautiful girl who made the most of what she had. Everyone loved Laurel, and Sara despised it. 

Everyone decided that they would hold Sara up to Laurel’s standards. Laurel didn’t get any grade short of an A, and Laurel didn’t sneak out of the house to go to parties, Laurel didn’t lie to her parents about doing her chores to go and see her sister’s boyfriend. Sara was nothing like Laurel, but every adult figure in her life refused to believe it. 

Laurel remembered every moment of the day she found out Sara had gone missing on the Gambit, along with Ollie. She remembered Moira walking through the front entrance of her family home, explaining that not only did she not know where Oliver was, but that the dock master had seen Sara sneak onto the Gambit at the last moment, and she went down with the ship and everybody else on board. According to Laurel, that was the last time she remembered actually living a proper life. She always said that even though she was very much alive, she wasn’t really living.

***

Sara stepped onto the welcome mat outside of Laurel’s apartment, hesitantly knocking on the door, right below the peephole. She immediately heard locks clicking, and within a matter of seconds, she heard a large gasp escape her sister’s mouth, and was quickly engulfed in an incredibly tight hug. Sara had never felt more at home in the last six years than she did tightly wrapped in her older sister’s embrace. Laurel soon let go of her, staring up and down, sighing, and the inviting the younger woman into her home. 

As Sara entered the apartment, she realized how much everything had changed since she had been gone. Her parents weren’t together, Robert Queen was dead, meaning he didn’t rule the city anymore, and Starling was failing. She looked her sister in the eyes, a mixed look of happiness, confusion, and anger, all feelings Sara knew better than most. 

Suddenly, Laurel was firing away, question after question, until Sara heard the one question she had quietly been rehearsing her answer for. ‘What the hell did you do on that island?’

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! I'm quite busy so updates will be a bit sporadic, however I'm always working on ideas. Chapters should range from about a thousand words to around seven thousand, excluding the prologue, which is just a starter. I'll usually update on weekends, especially early in the mornings. Have a lovely day!


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